On this episode of This Week in Rauchbier special co-host Erik Lehto talks about home brewing rauchbier and the smoke beer scene in Sweden. Then we're joined by Bill Cherry, the founder and brewmaster of Switchback Brewing in Vermont who shares stories and the inspiration behind the brewery's Flynn on Fire Series. As always, Bart Watson of the Brewers Association joins the show to talk about the smoked beer stats we all look forward to each week. Finally, we have a brewers roundtable to talk abo...
Apr 01, 2022•59 min
It’s great fun to have Mirella Amato on the show this week. I’ve had the good pleasure of knowing her for years and have enjoyed her writings and keen insight into the proper way to pair beer and food. Amato is a Master Cicerone, as well as a Doemens Bier Sommelier. She the also the author of Beerology: Everything You Need to Know to Enjoy Beer…Even More , which is available where books are sold . Recently the sensory and craft beer consultant launched a new online course through her website, Be...
Mar 30, 2022•56 min
I’m excited to have Sam Tierney on the show this week. He’s been running Firestone Walker’s Propagator in Los Angeles for the six years it’s been open and has unique insight on creating small batches that could one day be scaled, experimenting with ingredients, and finding the sweet spot for drinkers. He’s a passionate brewer who takes the role seriously and is constantly trying to find ways to improve upon techniques and processes. As the brewery location nears another anniversary he reflects o...
Mar 23, 2022•59 min
Show notes from host John Holl "A few weeks ago I was in Rochester judging the New York State Beer Competition and on the last day of judging, my pal Lew Bryson walked into the room wearing a shirt that asked: "Got Milktubes?" It was from Human Robo t, a Philadelphia brewery that has leaned in hard on its love of lagers. When the brewery opened two years ago in the site of the former St. Benjamin brewing, it didn’t get the full splash that it deserved due to the pandemic, but it has slowly built...
Mar 16, 2022•45 min
Show notes from John Holl: "If you’ve been listening to this show as well as Steal This Beer over the last few weeks there’s been a focus in and around the Rochester, New York area breweries. Rochester is of course well known for Genesee Beer, but over the last decade has emerged as a craft beer destination, fueled by small breweries who are paying careful attention to recipes, integrating into the local fabric through art and music, and giving chefs a chance to shine in the kitchens. Among the ...
Mar 09, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Show notes from host John Holl: "When you think about Great Lakes Brewing, Edmund Fitzgerald Porter likely comes to mind. It’s the flagship beer of a brewery that has helped shape craft beer in America and fostered the career of many in the industry. There's more to the Cleveland, Ohio than that one flagship and the brewery has been working to adapt to changing palates and trends. For insight on what's been happening at the brewery and what is on the horizon, I’m joined this week by Mark Hunger ...
Mar 02, 2022•52 min
Brewers tend to get excited when Jeff Bagby is around. As one of the most awarded brewers in the country and a staunch voice for classic styles and well balanced beers, he extolls pleasures of creating lagers and ales that lend to a good time. After a career that saw him on the brew decks of noted breweries like Stone and Pizza Port, where he was the director of brewing operations, he and his wife opened up Bagby Beer Co. in 2014 in a 8,500 square foot location that is not only home to the brewe...
Feb 23, 2022•1 hr 3 min
While the announcement a few years back might have surprised some, internally at Other Half the move into a brewery space in New York’s Finger Lakes region , just south of Rochester made sense. The brewery had done a number of popups in the area and consumer reception was strong. When a brewery sitting on eight acres suddenly closed in the town of Bloomfield the brewery jumped at the chance, foregoing a city location for a more rural one. This presented the opportunity for the brewery to push de...
Feb 16, 2022•52 min
Friendly bets have become popular under the backdrop of the Super Bowl . Mayors of cities that host game-bound teams engage in banter designed to boost tourism, friends take on each other, and small businesses go toe to toe and show off team pride. Breweries are no different. This year as the Cincinnati Bengals take on the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California we welcome on three breweries engaged in such a bet. The terms of the bet weren’t firmed up before recording this sho...
Feb 09, 2022•1 hr 15 min
Julian Shrago is the co-founder and brewmaster of Beachwood Brewing , which already boasts several locations in Southern California with more on the way. He’s a thoughtful brewer, who takes big ideas and brings them down to a manageable level that are executed well and in my interactions with him over the years, at festivals, at the brewery, and just in the wild, I’m always struck by his thoughtful nature and his commitment to small brewers, traditional styles, and education. On the show this we...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 6 min
Jenny Pfafflin is the marketing and creative manager at Dovetail Brewery in Chicago. She’s also one of the four brewers on staff. That means she gets to spend her days talking about, thinking about, making, and drinking some of the most traditional and flavorful beers made in the U.S. today. Dovetail is no stranger to this show. Episode Five featured Hagen Dost and Bill Wesselink the co-founders of the brewery, and gave birth to This Week in Rauchbier. If you follow Dovetail on social media it i...
Jan 26, 2022•58 min
For a brewery less than a decade old, it’s been a hell of a ride for Trillium in Massachusetts. Starting in a small cramped space near Boston’s waterfront, to now boasting a growing roster of locations including restaurants and a farm, the brewery has been celebrated and scrutinized but always focused. This is most apparent in the beers themselves. Sure, there are hazy IPAs and big imperial stouts but also beers that celebrate agriculture, or play with ingredients like wine grapes and honey. So ...
Jan 19, 2022•58 min
Before he started in the brewing industry Kevin Abbott was a wine steward. His time in restaurants helped form his idea behind food and beverage – something that exists to this day. He started as a homebrewer and then jumped into the deep end of the pool, starting as the head brewer for Funky Buddha in Florida back when they were launching into brewpub operations. He stayed there for nearly four years and then moved to Due South Brewing before becoming a Partner and Head Brewer at Barrel of Monk...
Jan 12, 2022•54 min
A lot of experiences are lost in the digital age. We get so accustomed to seeing places virtually on a screen, or reading pieces built for short bursts that when a book like the World Atlas of Beer comes along we all should take notice. This 3rd edition is completely revised and authors Tim Webb and Stephen Beaumont take us on a tour of the world through its beer culture. This isn’t a travel book per se, but an examination of what each country has created in the brewing space, what it aspires to...
Jan 05, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Show notes from John Holl: "A lot of us had high hopes for 2021 and getting back into normalcy, old routines, and sitting down on familiar barstools. It didn’t turn out as we’d hoped. Again, over the course of this past year, I’ve talked with a lot of brewery owners and brewers about how COVID-19 has impacted them and changed the brewing industry, but like we did at this time last year, I want to talk about bars and what the pandemic has done to them. Once again on the show I’m honored to be joi...
Dec 29, 2021•58 min
For the second year in a row, as we end a year amid a pandemic, there continues to be innovation and uncertainty in the beer space. To reflect on it all host John Holl gathered some of his friends and fellow writers to talk about the year that was and what might be coming over the horizon of 2022. Guests this week are: - Christopher Shepard the senior editor of Craft Brew News, published by Beer Marketers Insights; - Freelance writer Carla Jean Lauter; - Matt Kirkegaard, the founder and editor o...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 13 min
A lot of ink has been spilled writing about Spotted Cow, the behemoth flagship of New Glarus Brewing Co. , but there are a good number of beers that the brewery puts out each year, including seasonals and one offs that go beyond the bovine. It’s the limited edition beers that often capture the interest and attention of beer fans – if they can get them. Recently New Glarus released two small batch beers, both boasting chocolate as an ingredient. A Blueberry Chocolate Stout and a Mocha Berry Bock ...
Dec 15, 2021•1 hr 6 min
Show notes from Host John Holl : "Wine Enthusiast Magazine released its Top 50 Beers of the Year list earlier this week. I’m the contributing editor for beer in those pages, and you should give it a look if you haven’t already. In thinking about the list and all the beers I was lucky enough to taste on the blind panels this year I wanted to bring together some brewing industry folks – those who are on the list - for a chat about the year that was and where they see the current state of beer. The...
Dec 08, 2021•1 hr 22 min
Sam Riggins is making the most out of his brewery. Cosmic Eye Brewery is his long running vision of a brewing operation that he could call home. Starting as a home brewer and then working for Nebraska Brewing Co., he and his wife started the Lincoln, Nebraska based brewery about four years ago, envisioning it as a local taproom that could also make beer to for the local market. The pandemic, of course, has complicated things. But a stick-to-it-ness and a desire to make beer that doesn’t follow h...
Dec 01, 2021•1 hr 11 min
Notes from Host John Holl: A well conceived and executed beer dinner is a wonderful thing. It is a combination of a chef's creativity and a brewer's best efforts coming together on one table. It is best paired with companions that are enthusiastic about flavor and exploration. One of the best beer dinners I’ve ever attended was at The Ruck , a great beer bar in Troy, New York. The chef at the time Rachel Mabb outdid herself course after course pairing with, and occasionally cooking with Allagash...
Nov 24, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Inspired by Belgium and its beers, Matt Manthe has a strong respect for wild microbes, spontaneous ales, and the results that come from letting cultures express themselves. His professional brewing career and studies have taken him from South Carolina, to Berlin and now to Florida, where he did the work of shift and head brewing making clean beers for thirsty customers. Behind the scenes and at home he was experimenting with his own house strain, and thinking about long and wood aged ales. You’d...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 18 min
Show notes from host John Holl: "You’ll hear how I first met Sean Lilly Wilson a little later in the show, but what I didn’t know back then and what I’ve come to experience over the course of nearly a decade, is his commitment to food, drink, hospitality, creativity, culture, and community. Outside of Fullsteam , the brewery he launched in 2010, much of the growth of North Carolina as a premiere beer state has to do with the efforts he mounted – with a dedicated group of others – to change the t...
Nov 10, 2021•46 min
Alan Sprints wanted to be a chef, but the hours were going to be terrible and he wanted to raise a family, so he went into brewing instead. That was to the great benefit to all of us because his dedication to styles that were not mainstream, or even sessionable meant the creation of building blocks that the entire US craft industry stands on today. From the early days of Oregon craft beer, to brewing beers that are meant to be cellared, to legacy and beyond, his perspective is unparalleled and h...
Nov 03, 2021•52 min
Show notes from Host John Holl: I met Jeff Alworth in the comments section of his blog, Beervana . A decade ago I had written an article for a newspaper and Alworth had thoughts and took the piece to task. He was wrong, of course, so like any keyboard warrior, I logged on and defended my digital honor. We became friends shortly after. If you are interested in beer, you likely know Alworth. He’s internationally respected writer and authority on beer. He has a deep respect for beer styles, history...
Oct 27, 2021•52 min
Show notes from host John Holl: "If you’re a regular listener of this show you might recall that a few weeks back I was in Nashville for Funk Fest, an event put on by Yazoo Brewing and Embrace the Funk. I participated in a few live discussions with brewers and spent a delightful 45 minutes with Pete Halupka the co-founder and head brewer of Harvest Roots Ferments in Alabama. I wish we had recorded it. So, in an effort to recreate the magic, he’s here this week via zoom talking about fermentation...
Oct 20, 2021•1 hr 2 min
Bess Dougherty has one of the best social media accounts in the beer space these days, mostly because it doesn’t largely focus on beer. With her Carhartt overalls, she’s been using the front pocket to hold snacks. From cookies and chips, to ice cream bars and tater tots, the snack pocket is a quirky escape from reality that celebrates between meal noshes. Bess has been brewing for a decade now, starting off at Wynkoop, the venerable Denver Brewery, before moving on to a head brewer position at t...
Oct 13, 2021•1 hr 7 min
In this episode recorded in Nashville, Tennessee during the Yazoo Brewing Funk Fest Brady Duncan, a co-founder and Ryan Blevins, the head brewer, of MadTree Brewing share thoughts on IPA and lager, and the fun and hard work that comes with day-to-day operations. The brewery has come a long way since Duncan and his other homebrew-minded founders went pro. Fueled by the growth of their IPA, but with a passion for lagers and crazy experimentation - that’s where the “mad” comes in - they are constan...
Oct 06, 2021•47 min
Private Press is the newest chapter in Brad Clark’s brewing career. In 2005, fresh out of Siebel he co-founded Jackie O’s a Pub and Brewery in Athens, Ohio, working as the brewer and rising in the job titles as the company grew from a few hundred barrels a year to more than 10,000 annually. Along the way his recipes were lauded, racked up awards, and inspired a new generation of brewers who came up behind him. And then in 2019 he announced that he was leaving. He was moving west to be closer to ...
Sep 29, 2021•1 hr 13 min
New Holland Brewing Co. was founded in 1996 and over the years it has evolved from a small brewpub to one of the country’s largest craft brewers, all on the back of a bourbon barrel imperial stout – a pretty amazing feat. Brett VanderKamp was a co-founder of the brewery and now sits in the CEO role. He's learned a lot along the way, some good and some bad, and has tried to use the brewery as a platform for good in the community where New Holland is based and around Michigan. In this wide ranging...
Sep 22, 2021•1 hr 20 min
Show notes from host John Holl : Back in my traveling days, I was always happy to run into Phil Wymore. I’ve always found the co-founder of Perennial Artisan Ales to be affable, interesting, and tuned into flavor. Since Perrenial was founded its grown in size and prestige, turning out a variety of beers, notably imperial stouts, but also crisp pilsners. For Wymore, the desire to own a business and to create and sell something that housed his creativity has been with him since a very young age. H...
Sep 15, 2021•1 hr 6 min
